My own opinion about this is very
firmly against it - even if I - of course - may be convinced
that it is done with the best intentions. But - there are musical,
practical and ethical issues which should be seriously considered:

1.
Many of the works - especially for piano and other instruments together
- are written in a very special way so that the other instruments or
an entire orchestra takes care of those musical lines and textures that
would be difficult or even impossible to bring out with only one hand. Rearranging the music for two hands would then mean that you would have to
re-score the whole piece. The works by Franz Schmidt and Erich Wolfgang
Korngold are very good examples here.

2.
A pianist with two well functioning hands can play (or should be able to play)
with one hand alone. For obvious reasons the opposite is not possible.

3.
For the suddenly invalidated pianist
a whole world collapses: Never again will he or she be able to play the great
concertos of Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms - or any their great solo works. If
he wants to fight back at Fate and stay in business, he will be compelled to
playing the works written or arranged for one hand. Even though the repertory
is enormous with hundreds of suitable works - it is the sad fact that there is no Emperor concerto,
no Tchaikovsky B flat minor, no Mozart D minor K466 etc. among
them. It just takes that little respect to realize how important it is to
leave the works written for one hand alone - as they are! And it just takes
that little stupidity to jump to the wrong conclusion that I am arguing for
some kind of freak show. Oh - no - I leave that kind of immorality to record
companies who will make money on any mentally or physically invalidated person just
for the sake of - well - yes: freak show - and the money involved!

(there
is of course a fourth issue - and that is to rearrange the music for
two hands without changing one single note - just because you can't play it
- but that is not very sporting - is it?. Ravel was said to have been forced
to use both hands to play his concerto - well so much for his pianism!)

There have been made
some
recordings of some works by Franz Schmidt for piano and orchestra or chamber music
with piano, but only during the last
decade or so have we had the original versions for one hand. The others have
been in a Friedrich Wührer's arrangements for two hands. When Wittgenstein
heard of that he was understandably very upset, but Mr. Wührer defended
himself with the claim that it had been Schmidt's dying wish (!).
First of
all I really don't think I believe Mr. Wührer and secondly - if I did - he
ought to have known better. During his last years Schmidt was a very sick
man who never became the same great person he once was. And when he was
close to dying, his mind was so clouded that he could be mentally raped by
anybody. Thus he even embarked on writing a grand cantata: "Die
Deutsche Auferstehung" (The German Resurrection), celebrating the
revival and the unification of the Germans under Adolf Hitler.
Schmidt's widow tried to come to Mr. Wührer's rescue resulting in a very long correspondence
with Wittgenstein in which Frau Schmidt contradicts herself, runs away from
promises and argues in such an inconsistent way that even a child can see
through it.
Today the general interest in the real thing has turned the whole
situation and hopefully Mr. Wührer's arrangements will soon be just as
forgotten as he was as a pianist.

Strangely enough this
misunderstood practice of rearranging has always been restricted to the
so-called minor composers I cannot think of any pianist of renown being so
stupid as to try to rewrite Ravel's concerto, and even Profofiev quickly
gave up any idea of rewriting his 4th piano concerto.

But then - why accept
arrangements "the other way round" - that is pieces for two hand
arranged for one? Are the technical, musical and ethical problems not the
same? Well - yes and no.

Arrangements
have always been there and will probably always be there. Indeed I can
hardly think of a composer who hasn't made arrangements of other composer's
works. Even the greatest among them have sort of legitimized it - for
different reasons: If Bach had not made his arrangement of Vivaldi's
concerto for four violins into a quadruple harpsichord concerto very few
Germans would have been able to enjoy this work, for Vivaldi was not that
well known in Germany at that time. Mozart made an arrangement of Handel's
Messiah (even adding an aria of his own) at a time when it would be almost
unthinkable that anyone would perform an oratorio by Handel in Vienna,
Beethoven even made arrangements of his own works for other instrument
(f.ex. the septet) and Haydn, Beethoven, Grieg, Britten and many others have
made thousands of arrangements of folk music.

One
of the greatest arrangers was Franz Liszt and it is easy to understand why
this work of his was indeed very important: With his arrangements of Beethoven's
symphonies for piano or the songs by Schubert and many others this music was
presented to a public that would otherwise never have heard it - remember
this was all in the pre-CD-days.

And
just think of all the other romantic pianists producing hundreds of fantasies,
variations etc. on famous opera tunes. I don't think these have robbed the
real composer of anything - it is more or less two different works - just
sharing a tune and if I had been an opera composer at that time I would feel
ashamed if nobody cared to make some fantasy on my tunes; it was sort of
expected.

Liszt even
went further - at least in private and in front of his pupils. He just might
play a new work through as it was written, but then he would play it again
with his "corrections" and "improvements". Once a young
and unknown composer presented one of his works to Liszt who sat down at the
piano and played it with corrections, improvements and all. Afterwards he
turned to the composer with a charming smile and said: I think this was what
you meant - and the young composer beamed with joy and pride. Then again -
when Brahms visited Liszt and presented one of his works Liszt did not
change one note. Perhaps he might have been tempted - but besides being a
brilliant musical mind he was also a man-of-the-world who knew very well
where to draw the line.

Franz Liszt c.1864Archiv für Kunst und
Gechichte, Berlin

This
line was very rarely crossed and politeness and patience were two things
that he could afford - being a very unique person and musician - and knowing
it. But on one occasion he crossed the line and this story ought to included
here since it is not well known.

Ole Bull

Once the aging Norwegian violinist Ole Bull
visited Liszt and they played a duet which started all right. But then Bull
made some mistakes and the music stopped. Even though the fault was Bull's Liszt
excused himself, smiled and they started all over again - but with the same result. The
third time Ole Bull was at his nerves' end and made a capital blunder in
directly blaming Liszt for the faults - which is wasn't. This was where the
line went. Liszt rose from the chair, seized it and smashed it to the floor
screaming at Ole Bull: How dare you say that - you old buffoon - to me -
Franz Liszt. Your name will be long forgotten
when the whole musical world is still kneeling in awe and admiration at my
grave!

...and
some grave!

With Godowsky
(and for that matter Brahms and his Weber
arrangement) the issue is a little different. Here we are talking og
piano compositions made into new piano compositions. Godowsky explicitly called them paraphrases and not arrangement, which they are not. In all of
them (whether for one or two hands) he takes Chopin's notes and in some way
pinpoints their difficulty (as if that was necessary) - mostly by
making them even more difficult: changing right and left hand, mirroring one
hand with the other, changing the accompaniment to make an intricate
polyrhythmic web and even (twice) combining two etudes (f.ex. the two in G
flat major: Butterfly and Black notes). The last of his
paraphrases has unfortunately never been found - here he ventures into the
seemingly impossible of combining three etudes in A minor. Some pianist today have
tried to reconstruct it but - alas - they are no Godowskies, and as a great
friend of mine once said - (about another artist, Lauridz Melchior - but it goes for Godowsky
too): When God had created him - he destroyed the mould.

The
best defense for such work as Godowsky's is that he hasn't robbed Chopin of
anything - indeed on the contrary. Godowsky composed these works out of admiration
for Chopin of whom he was a great admirer and interpreter and - in fact - he shows us -
listeners and pianists - how "hard-wearing" these etudes are: When
you return to Chopin after Godowsky you will appreciate them even more and
understanding them in a new way as the unique masterpieces they are.